Laurie Speed of Speed & King (Photo: John Disney/ALM)

While the Georgia General Assembly put high-profile energy into passing a six-week abortion ban this year, the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association leaders took note in their annual meeting last weekend of what the legislators did not pass: mainly measures to limit the medical damages in civil litigation, outgoing president Laurie Speed told the Daily Report in an interview looking back on her one-year term.

Tort reformers had a “behind-the-scenes presence” at the Capitol this year, Speed said. And the trial lawyers stepped up their lobbying presence.

“Historically, we've had hands-off officers who come to meetings,” Speed said. “All my officers were all hands on deck.”

Speed said the GTLA Executive Committee meets monthly but, leading up the election last fall, the officers and legislative team had weekly calls. During the legislation session, they spoke almost daily.

“We were meeting on the phone and at the Capitol,” Speed said. “These are people who have full-time practices and who are trying cases. Meanwhile, they are committed to the civil justice system and willing to put their own practices on hold to make sure we have a voice at the Capitol and that bad laws are not passed. I think it's what makes trial lawyers different. This isn't a job for us. Call it a passion or a calling? The leaders of GTLA cannot turn a blind eye to politics just so they could focus on their own cases.”

As president of the 2,000-member, statewide trial lawyers' group, Speed said her job was simple in a way. “We're a one-issue organization,” she said. “We're focused on protecting the right to trial by jury.” Still, she said she felt more like the “arms and legs” of the organization than a figurehead.

The group offers continuing legal education as part of its member services. And its members fund what they say is the state's biggest political action committee.

Speed said leading the group was a different experience from her service as president of the Georgia Association of Women Lawyers in 2004 and 2005, although consensus-building was certainly part of that. But, she said, “I did not have the political and legislative exposures that I did here.”

What she learned, she said, was to use her experience as a trial lawyer in a new arena.

“Legislative lobbying is very similar to talking to a jury. You have a short time to educate and present a reasonable, rational explanation of your 'case.' If you overreach, you not only will not convince the person … to vote with you, but you also lose credibility going forward,” she said.

Speed handed off the gavel Friday night at the president's gala to the new leader, Daniel Snipes of Taulbee, Rushing, Snipes, Marsh & Hodgin of Statesboro. Speed will continue to serve on the executive committee for one more year as immediate past president. And she will return her focus to her firm, Speed & King.

Speed and Michelle King started the firm two years ago after leaving Shamp, Speed, Jordan, Woodward. Speed & King is a litigation boutique specializing in personal injury and medical malpractice.

Ironically, the big news bill that the Legislature did pass this year may result in new business for medical malpractice trial lawyers like Speed, if it is enacted.

“We cannot recover for the wrongful death of a fetus if it's not 18-20 weeks,” Speed said. That's the point of movement, called quickening. She said she's had to turn down potential medical malpractice cases in the past on that basis.

That could change, if Gov. Brian Kemp signs the legislation banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy into law and if it survives a certain legal challenge in federal court. Backers of similar legislation around the country call them “heartbeat bills” because they are based on the point at which a pulsing sound can be detected by a doctor on a transvaginal ultrasound. But the authoring legislators of the Georgia legislation added a personhood stipulation that gives the fetus legal status as a tax deduction and a child-support claim, calculating that would add to the chances of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. That landmark decision holds that women have the right to choose abortion until a fetus can survive after birth.

“That would open up wrongful death cases at six weeks,” Speed said. “I don't think that was their intention.”